Would-be “Mac cloner” Psystar has issued a statement on their website. Here it is verbatim:
Psystar has always been more a Cowboy than a Hippie. Now we’ve changed lawyers to better reflect who we are. Camara & Sibley LLP of Houston, Texas, has officially become our primary legal counsel in our ongoing litigation with Apple.
Everyone here values openness. And that’s how we’re going to fight Apple: in public. We have nothing to hide. We buy hundreds of copies of OS X legally, from retailers like Amazon and Apple itself. We’re probably one of Apple’s biggest customers. Then we install these copies of OS X, along with kernel extensions that we wrote in-house, on computers that we buy and build. Then we resell the package to people like you. That’s it.
Apple’s copyright on OS X doesn’t give Apple the right to tell people what they can do with it after they buy a copy. Apple can’t tell an applications developer that it can’t make a piece of Mac-compatible software. They can’t forbid Mac users from writing blogs critical of Apple. And they can’t tell us not to write kernel extensions that turn the computers we buy into Mac-compatible hardware.
A new trial date has been set for January 11, 2010, in federal court in San Francisco. As we move toward trial, we’ll be keeping you informed about the arguments, the evidence, and what’s going on in the case. And, come January, Camara & Sibley will be ready to fight for Psystar, guns blazin’. We hope to see you there!
Source: Psystar
MacDailyNews Take: What happened to the other lawyers, Psystar? Did you pay them or not? Isn’t that really why you had to find new lawyers? Just askin’, you know, in the name of “openness.”
Pound sand, Pisstar.
Cowboys No Clowns Yes,
Legal Clowns = Camara & Sibley LLP of Houston, Texas
Just Clowns = Psystar
What a Joke
Isn’t this just a grand ploy to gain more Facebook friends?
What a frakking insult to cowboys. At least cowpokes know the value of real, honest work. Pshyster is selling horse meat branded as beef.
And by the way, those “hippies” invented the software you’re basing your entire business on.
“Apple’s copyright on OS X doesn’t give Apple the right to tell people what they can do with it after they buy a copy. “
I believe, Psystar, that you are NOT buying OS X. You are licensing the use of the software per the terms of agreement set by Apple. And OS X is licensed to run only on Apple produced hardware. Apple does indeed have the right to spell out the terms by which it licenses companies and individuals to use its intellectual property. If you don’t want Apple hardware, go with Linux or Windows. There are plenty of alternatives. Cowboys or not, Psystar is going down.
Even if this suit is won, Apple can always switch architectures and use ARM, after all OSX already runs on ARM hardware (iphone) and they do own P.A. Semi. Nice stuff too …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWRficient
and this is their older designs!
@Demon
What? No mention of Rodeo Clowns?
Dear Psystar, just a few questions. Was the old lawyer more of a hippie? How do cowboys respond when you clone their brand? How about when you clone their branding iron?
Is writing a blog as easy as writing kernel extension? What’s the ratio of hippies to cowboys in San Francisco? (Not including <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castro,_San_Francisco,_California”>)
Mmmm, horse meat, that’s tasty flesh! I like mine grilled to medium-rare or roasted with onions, peppers, and white potatoes.
It will be interesting to see what Psystar does when Snow Leopard is released in September.
They can’t buy the Snow Leopard UPGRADE for $29 and install it on their system. Not legally, not even by their flawed definition of what is legal.
All new Macs will come with Snow Leopard pre-installed, and an OEM Snow Leopard installation disc. Most existing Intel Macs have Leopard already, and they will use the $29 upgrade to get to Snow Leopard. I don’t think Apple is going to sell a separate “retail” package with a Snow Leopard disc.
“What? No mention of Rodeo Clowns? “
Glen Beck was one and he’s smarter than just about ALL the clowns in Washington.
Go Psystar!!!
Apple may have spent more on legal fees than Psystar has ever collected in profits. Where is the evidence that sales of Macs have been affected by Psystar? From what I have read, Apple’s sales figures don’t indicate any negative trend in sales.
Apple seems to be engaged in a vain attempt to protect their brand. Only a moron would confuse a Mac with Psystar’s products and this is not the demographic that Apple would sell products to anyhow.
We have nothing to hide.
…except, of course, the exact location of your company when you first started out. Remember how it suddenly changed a bunch of times? Where’s the openness and transparency there, eh?
Oh, and stop trying to play to the open-source crowd, Psheister. When it comes to the “kernel extensions [you] wrote in-house”, we already know your EULA is more restrictive than Apple’s – even on the code you stole from other open-source projects in the first place.
I hope Apple grinds your company into a fine powder.
“Gotta burn mah boots! They touched Yankee soil!”
Quoting Plystar: Apple’s copyright on OS X doesn’t give Apple the right to tell people what they can do with it after they buy a copy.</u> Well… I’m not an attorney, but I believe Apple’s End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) certainly does. That licensing agreement requires that Apple’s intellectual property only be run on Apple’s hardware.
Unlike Microsoft, which makes crud and only sells cheap versions that are cunningly de-featured so business has to pay big $$$ to buy something that is worth a holy crap, Apple sells only <i>one version of OS X—and for one price. And that price isn’t very much; just flat cheap considering the investment they put into it. The catch? Apple asks that you not run their fine (but inexpensive) software on a cheap piece of crap they didn’t have a hand in making. If you can’t abide by that licensing term, then don’t buy OS X.
Wow, they buy HUNDREDS of licenses.
Nice sales figures, guys.
These asswipes will soon be of the ages.
ShooooWeeeeee, little doggie!!!
If Apple can’t tell people what to do with the software they buy, what’s preventing Psystar from buying one copy of OS X and installing it on every computer they sell? If Psystar is buying one copy per machine (or a family pack for 5 machines), they are honoring at least part of the EULA, and if they are honoring one part, why not the rest?
I don’t think this has anything to do with copyright. It has everything to do with the terms of a licensing agreement into which buyer and seller voluntarily enter. Psystar is shooting its own argument in the foot by honoring part of the license but not all of it.
@Greg L
Actually, Apple sells two versions of Mac OS X: Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X (i.e., client, which is what the vast majority of Apple customers use). I’m actually a little surprised that Pschyster hasn’t come out with a cheap blade on which they load Mac OS X Server by now. But then again, I don’t visit their web site, so maybe they do & I don’t know about it. AFAIC, the whole operation is an expensive challenge to Apple legal that’s going to to be vaporized come January. With their Orwellian mgmt team, I wonder if the secret backers they’re protecting with their “openness” are getting their money’s worth?
@ So What,
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“Apple seems to be engaged in a vain attempt to protect their brand. ” That is what they are required to do by law. Troll or just lacking in brain cells???
Read roughlydrafted.com. It will either explain the facts to you or leave you confused.
Just a thought.
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en
“Apple’s copyright on OS X doesn’t give Apple the right to tell people what they can do with it after they buy a copy.”
So, they can mass produce copies and sell them on eBay? They can post it on a website for free download? Or share it on a peer-to-peer network?
OK. Now, I get it. Psystar wants to follow only some of the licensing agreement – the parts that don’t harm their business.
Rootin’ tootin’ cowboys!!
I hope the gun blows up in their face. Nice to see Elmer Fudd take it in the shorts on this one. Just what we need is a roque builder willing to take short cuts on hardware.
The next thing we will have is people bitching that OSX has so many problems on their PC hardware.
“Pshyster is selling horse meat branded as beef.”
Just a day or two I was reading an old newspaper about a tavern owner who had been promising his customers a venison dinner. He was unlucky in his hunting, so he secretly bought a hindquarter of a workhorse that had to be put down due to old age. He then served horse meat as venison. The only one who knew the truth was his cousin, who had to choke down the horse meat in silence.